Something to Tell You: A Novel by Hanif Kureishi

A good piece of advice to authors of first-person novels comes from John Dowell, the hapless narrator of Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier.” Trying to decide how best to tell his story, Dowell settles on a tried-and-true approach. “So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage,” he tells us, “with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars.”

Washington Post Book Reviews - SOMETHING TO TELL YOU - ArcaMax Publishing.